Editor’s note: This is the last in a three-part series exploring the Little Cities of Black Diamonds, 61 coal towns in Southeast Ohio.
As buildings throughout the country are torn down to make way for larger, more eye-catching houses, Southeast Ohio residents are working to preserve the area’s architectural heritage.
The remaining coal-town structures of Athens, Hocking, Morgan and Perry counties are one of the strongest testaments to what life was like from 1870 to 1920, when the mining industry was in its prime.
One such town is the Eclipse Company Town, located in The Plains. The town sits atop the Hocking Valley Coal Company’s Eclipse Mine No. 4, which was in operation from 1900 until the early 1930s.
In the early 1900s, the town’s miners and their families rented houses from the coal company. Now, the town has been refurbished and is on the National Register of Historic Places.
“It was the last company town in Ohio that still had a company store standing,” said Jonathon Sowash, one of the owners of the Eclipse Company Town. “We thought it was very special, and we knew places like those would not be around long.”
The old company store was renovated by Eclipse, Ltd., and is now available to the public for weddings, parties and community events. In addition to the store, the town includes 12 company houses and one shotgun house — a small, rectangular home that was popular in the late 1800s. All of the town’s remaining buildings have been restored.
About half the homes are rented to area residents, and the others house businesses, such as a medical practice and Blockhead Donuts.
“It’s important to preserve a unique piece of our past and to demonstrate you don’t always have to build new or build big,” Sowash said. “There are existing houses — made of wood from this area and bricks made here — that are capable of reuse.”
Members of the Little Cities of Black Diamonds Council are dedicated to restoring the buildings that composed the coal towns when mining was at its apex in the region.
Sunday Creek Associates, a nonprofit organization dedicated to community organizing and promoting local history and culture in southern Perry County, also has been working to preserve the region’s architecture.
“Sunday Creek Associates themselves work with finding buildings to restore and finding new uses for them,” said Cheryl Blosser, a member of the Little Cities of Black Diamonds Council, which Sunday Creek Associates sponsors. “We do a lot of the (historical preservation), and they find uses for the buildings in the community.”
One of the projects undertaken by the Sunday Creek Associates was the restoration of the Tecumseh Theater building in the Shawnee, Ohio historical district. Funding for the project came from the U. S. Department of the Interior’s Save America’s Treasures program and the Ohio Department of Development.
“The architecture helps give this area its unique feel, its sense of place,” said John Winnenberg, a founding member of the council and a lead staff associate at Sunday Creek Associates. “We don’t look like ‘Anywhere USA.’ We have a unique look about us.”
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